American Co-discoverer of H.I.V. Is Investigated Anew

By PHILIP J. HILTS,

Published: March 2, 1992

WASHINGTON, March 1—
Dr. Robert Gallo, the American co-discoverer of the virus that causes AIDS and the subject of a Federal inquiry in connection with that discovery, is being investigated once again, Federal officials say, this time on charges of perjury and patent fraud.

At issue is the patent covering the test for detecting the human immunodeficiency virus, as well as the scientific glory for the remarkable research effort by which the virus was discovered and the detection test created.

The United States and France now share the royalties from the test and have arbitrarily split credit for the discoveries 50-50 under a 1987 agreement. In light of new accusations against Dr. Gallo and his colleagues, lawyers for the Pasteur Institute in France, where researchers also claim to be discovers of the virus, are now seeking to reverse that agreement and recover from Washington payments of $20 million plus future royalties. New Inquiries Opened

Dr. Gallo, of the National Institutes of Health, and an American colleague, Dr. Mikulas Popovic, who is now a part-time consultant, each earn about $100,000 a year from the patents. Under the 1987 agreement, 80 percent of the money from the patents goes to neither government nor individual scientists, but to AIDS research.

The Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, the General Accounting Office of Congress and the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations have all opened inquiries into the new charges.

They are asking whether statements by Dr. Gallo in the patent application for the virus test were knowingly false, especially the assertion that his work in developing the test owed very little to the French team.

The three groups are also investigating whether several senior officials of the Health Department had reason at the time to know that Dr. Gallo's statements in the patent application were false. The officials include Dr. James Mason, Assistant Secretary of Health. Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who heads the House subcommittee, has asked Dr. Mason and the others to excuse themselves from the investigation. A spokesman for Dr. Mason said he had decided not to excuse himself because his involvement in the patent issue was so slight. Denial From Researcher

Dr. Gallo vehemently denies any wrongdoing. He states he did not know about certain actions of Dr. Popovic, who is accused of falsifying data, and he says that he had no reason to share credit for his achievement with the French scientists.

The new inquiries have begun at a time when a longstanding Federal investigation of Dr. Gallo's original discovery is nearing its end. The investigation, which bears directly on events cited in the patent application, was prompted by an article by John Crewdson that appeared in The Chicago Tribune in 1989. The report of the Federal investigation, which was conducted by the Office of Scientific Integrity of the National Institutes of Health, has been through various drafts.

Although Dr. Gallo is not accused of misconduct in the latest draft, Dr. Popovic is, and the conclusions are far from flattering to either scientist.

The draft report says that in several instances Dr. Gallo failed to assure that facts in a May 1984 research paper were true, and failed to give credit to other scientists.

The report found numerous discrepancies between the Gallo team's laboratory records and the results claimed in the 1984 paper, which appeared in the journal Science. Because Dr. Popovic, Dr. Gallo's principal colleague, did most of the laboratory work, the report judged him most responsible, and the report's investigative team was unanimous in its opinion that Dr. Popovic had committed scientific misconduct. Harsh Criticism'

The discrepancies, in the investigators' view, stemmed from "misrepresentations or falsifications of the actual methodology and data," and could not have been due merely to honest mistakes or honest differences in judgment.

Dr. Popovic's lawyer, Barbara Mishkin, disputed the charges of misconduct. She said that when he arrived in the United States in the early 1980's as a refugee from Czechoslovakia, he was uncertain of the standards of note-keeping and accuracy that might be demanded of him. His notes were sporadic, and he worked in a great rush at Dr. Gallo's behest. He made errors, she said, but certainly not intentionally.

Of Dr. Gallo, the Office of Scientific Integrity report observes: "He breached his overall responsibility as head of the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology and senior author to ensure the accuracy of the paper. This absence of responsible behavior cannot be condoned, but, in the opinion of the O.S.I., they do not consitute scientific misconduct on the part of Dr. Gallo."

But one of three authors of the report disagreed. The dissenter said that Dr. Gallo's conduct, "coupled with his apparent disregard in this instance for accuracy and responsibility in the conduct and reporting of research, did constitute scientific misconduct."

The report called Dr. Gallo's behavior self-serving and said that it showed "an unhealthy disregard for accepted standards of professional and scientific ethics." False Statements Seen